Highlights and News

THINKING Like a Watershed

The Fox River is a fine demonstration of Barry Commoner’s Laws of Ecology. Law #1 is that all things are connected. This is evident in the definition of a watershed; it is the entire land area that drains to a common place. The Fox River Watershed covers over 2600 square miles of land that drain … Read more

Featured Friend: Michelle Soland

Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall, all you have to do is call – Michelle Soland Some people are just special.  It’s really that simple.  Meet Michelle Soland, veteran Friend of the Fox River.  She has been a Friends of the Fox River (FOTFR) staple for close to ten years, developing, leading, and assisting with the … Read more

The Fox and the Owl

For this month’s edition of my Reflections on the Fox blog, I thought I’d relate a couple of incidents that occurred this past weekend (January 21-23), on a couple of my Snowy Owl safaris, that I found truly amazing.  It was a cold and snowy weekend that I thought would be perfect for Snowy Owl … Read more

Observing the Night Sky

December marks the Christmas season, the onset of winter, and the shortest day of the year.  Despite it being “the most wonderful time of the year” according to a favorite holiday song, December provides challenges for those of us who enjoy exploring the outdoors in our Fox River Valley.  The cold and sometimes snowy weather … Read more

A Year in the Rearview Mirror

If hindsight is 20-20, we can see we could have managed a few things differently in the year 2020. Friends of the Fox River (FOTFR) executed necessary pivots, operational adaptations, and reassessed goals when they became a moving target. We made only a few mistakes. Since we  couldn’t go to the schools, we developed a … Read more